3 Categories & 1 Word Reveal The Truth About The Success of Your Real Estate Business

Have you ever wondered why some businesses fail? It’s more than just a business plan or lack thereof. I think its something much deeper than that. You see, in the mist of all this “doom & gloom” in the economy that we keep hearing about, there are businesses out there that are failing but there are also businesses out there that are prevailing! Then we have business, who are sort of stuck in the middle? A few years ago, one of my mentors told me that there are 3 types of people in this world and that they’ll be identified by their actions.

People Who Make It Happen!

People Who Watch Things Happen!

People Who Ask…What Happened?

Behind each business is an individual or team that fits into one of the categories above. Therefore this would mean that the individual/team are a direct reflection of their business because the business will only go in the direction they tell it to.

Obviously the category you should be shooting for is #1.

What does it take to be in category #1?

Determination

It can be defined as the act of coming to some type of a decision or settling a purpose. The key word I want you to grab from that definition is “decision”. Anyone can say that want to have a successful real estate business. They could even go as far as saying that they WILL have a successful real estate business. However, talk is cheap and action speaks louder than words. Once you make a decision to actually take action on what it is you want, you’ll be leaps ahead of those who are sitting on the sidelines and closer to your goals.

Education

We all know that education can be defined as acquiring particular knowledge or skills, as for a profession. It’s important that you constantly educate yourself on whatever niche or area of real estate you’re specializing in. As the world evolves, there will be things that used to work well in the past that simply don’t work as well today. By continuing to increase your knowledge and applying what is working today in your business, you’ll continue to see the growth you seek.

Surrounding yourself with like minded individuals

I mention this often in some of my posts because it is so important. One quote you often here is “If you hang around 9 broke people and sooner a later, you’ll be # 10.” Many people think about just money when they read that quote. However I tend to think it digs even deeper than that. This kind of goes back to the talkers versus the doers. I don’t know anyone on the planet who doesn’t want to be successful at something. However, I don’t have enough fingers and toes to count the amount of people who won’t do anything about it. On top of that, some people just don’t think as BIG as you do and therefore they try to tell you that your dream is nothing more than a dream and can never be a reality. By surrounding yourself with people that see your dream as a reality and people that are already living your dream, you’ll be well on your way to seeing your dream become a reality and living it yourself.

Inspiration

This kind of piggy backs off of what I said earlier, but I have to mention it because life can really throw some curve balls at you. I’m not naive to the fact that there will be days or even weeks where things just don’t seem to come together like they should. Unexpected situations come up that interrupt the flow of positivity that you have going on. With that said, it doesn’t have to always be like that. This is why you always need to surround yourself with like minded individuals that see the light at the end of the tunnel because they can inspire you on days where you feel like giving up. You can do the same for them in return. Professional development is very important to you and your business and the more you immerse yourself in it, the more clearly you will see that the negative crap in life can be conquered.

Relationships

Let’s face it, real estate is a people business. If you’re not a people person then you are going to have a tough time, in my opinion. Understanding your client is key in building a successful business because without them your business is guaranteed to fail. Positioning your business as a business of value to the client will definitely give your business the boost it needs. Help them make easier decisions to do business with you by educating them on things they might not know about. Address their immediate concerns and see what resources you have or know about that can assist them. Customer satisfaction should always be at the top of the list.

Endurance

Again, this kind of piggy backs off of what I said earlier. However, you really need to have the ability to fight through hard times and come up with new & creative ideas to keep moving forward. Businesses that are close minded and stuck in tradition are failing big time in this economy. If you’re not a step ahead of your competition, then unfortunately your business will likely fail because they’ll be ethically stealing customers with their new and innovative strategies and you’ll get left in the dust. Analyze what is going on in the marketplace and CAPITALIZE on the opportunities by always moving forward.

Overall it is your D-E-S-I-R-E that will determine your overall Identity for you and your business!

The Desire to be Determined

The Desire To Keep Educating Yourself

The Desire To Surround yourself with like minded individuals

The Desire To Be Inspire yourself and othersby having a positive mind frame and keep pushing forward, no matter what.

The Desire To Build Relationships that stick

The Desire To Endure The Pain & Hardship that life throws your way and open yourself up to new and creative ways of doing business that allow you to move in the direction you want.

With that said, get out there and find your true DESIRES and take action upon it today! You can do this.

Business Identity + Desire= The End Result

To Your Success,

J. Lamar Ferren
“New Breed” Investor

Ps. Which category are you in? 1, 2, or 3?

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About Author

J. Lamar Ferren is a 26 year old New Breed Real Estate Investor who takes down deals nationwide. Through direct response marketing he uses creative and outside the box methods, both online and offline to attract buyers, sellers, and investors.

4 Comments

I don’t think I’ve read an article that has meant more to me at this time in my life. Lamar, you have put into words what I think every aspiring Entrepreneur feels about themselves and their challenge but does not yet have the experience or confidence to say.

The concepts here transcend business and really speak to the character of individuals.

I’m only 21 years old and hauling tail to get into the industry I want to be in (Real Estate). And I’ve noticed over the course of the 12 months I’ve dedicated my life to achieving my goal that I have gone through many of the stages/ embodied the qualities you described above. I see it almost as a hero’s journey. I haven’t completed my journey – far from it – but while I’m en route, I’d like to share my successes and experience with the students around me at my college. I started a blog for this purpose and for many months my blog really had no defining character, it was just a mish mash of whatever came to my head.

Now, after reading this post, I have found inspiration and a true message that I’d like to impart on my blog. I would like to share your message from this post w/ my peers at UC Santa Barbara. Would you mind if I quoted your post and ran a series relating the above topics to the life of a student rather then a business? If so, I would love to get your input on some of the concepts and maybe flesh things out a bit. I’ll connect w/ you on the forums as well, but do you think the above would be ok?

I sincerely appreciate your kind words and definitely understand where you are coming from as you continue down your path towards success. As you said, your journey is far from complete and each day we wake up we have an opportunity to make decisions that impact our lives in a great way.

I commend you for recognizing that at such a young age as well as understanding the necessity of sharing your experiences with others in order to help them grow. That my friend is very admirable and I encourage you to keep pushing forward.

As far as quoting my post above, I don’t have a problem. However, it’s best that you coordinate that with Josh Dorkin (CEO of BiggerPockets.com) as he has certain rules and regulations regarding the copyright of this content and if you’re going to quote anything, I want to make sure you do it the right way, BP can be happy, and you can accomplish what you need to.

With that said, I’m open to connecting with you through BiggerPockets and I’m very open to giving you any input I can to help you move forward. Just let me know!

Fantastic. Josh Dorkin did give me some information regarding the copyrighting and citation rules for quoting some of your content. Unfortunately, I addressed the email to Jason Dorkin by mistake when I responded so I hope he doesn’t hold that against me ;).

I’ll take our conversation from here to our correspondance via the BiggerPockets platform. Thanks for taking the time to help out an interested young student!

Thanks for the shot in the arm! Every now and then when things are slowing down I sometimes loose focus. I love it when I find something or someone to fan the flame to keep it burning. Looking forward to the next post.